BORODIANKA, Ukraine — In a hastily organized rally of support for Ukraine, Montana Senator Steve Daines and Indiana Representative Victoria Spartan traveled to Kiev and sites of human rights abuses in the city’s suburbs on Thursday, becoming the first U.S. officials to show up since the beginning of the war. war.
“Nothing can replace being here for real, seeing it first hand, spending time with the people and leaders here in Ukraine who have been terribly affected by this war,” Mr Daines said in an interview, standing on a ruin of an apartment building that had collapsed on its inhabitants in the town of Borodianka.
It was important, he said, that US elected officials showed solidarity.
Mr. Daines and Ms. Sparta, both Republicans, had been invited by the Ukrainian government with just over a day’s notice. mr. Daines had cut short a visit to Eastern Europe to make the trip. Ms. Spartan, who last year became the first Ukrainian-born lawmaker to serve in Congress, had planned an unofficial visit to Ukraine and later joined Mr. Daines for the trip supported by the Ukrainian government.
Once in Kiev, arriving by train from western Ukraine, the couple traveled by car escorted by police on a route through grim scenes of destruction, blown-up Russian tanks and rubble, where rescuers were still searching for bodies. The two also saw an excavation of a communal grave in Bucha, a town northwest of Kiev, where hundreds of bodies were found in the streets after Russian troops withdrew.
The horror at Bucha – where some victims’ hands were tied and some were shot in the head as a sign of extrajudicial killings – has become symbolic of the toll of war and a new touchstone of wartime human rights abuses in Europe. Several European delegations also visited the site.
The two Republican lawmakers arrived as the Biden administration is considering sending a senior official to Kiev in the coming days as a sign of support, according to a person familiar with the internal discussions.
President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have both made high-profile visits to Ukraine’s neighbors in the past month, and other top US officials have made similar visits, some close to the border. But no US official had publicly visited Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion in late February, and the United States has evacuated all diplomats.
Both Mr Daines and Ms Spartan said they are urging the United States to send diplomats back to Ukraine, as some European states have done now that Kiev, the capital, is no longer directly threatened by Russia.
“I hope our visit will encourage more American officials and leaders to come, stand with the people of Ukraine,” Mr Daines said, while Ms Spartaz said it was “important to show our support, to let see that we care about him.”
Standing in the rubble of the collapsed building, where Ukrainian officials have said at least 21 people were killed, Mr Daines found a children’s toy – a wooden car – and looked inside apartments ripped open by the explosion, with kitchen cabinets still visible. were hung on a wall.
War between Russia and Ukraine: important developments
A blow to the Russian troops. The flagship of the Russian Black Sea fleet suffered catastrophic damage that forced the crew to abandon it. Russia said a fire caused the damage, although Ukraine claimed to have hit the ship with missiles.
In Bucha, the two watched Ukrainian authorities remove three bodies from the tanned clay soil of a cemetery where a communal grave was being excavated.
Daines described what he had seen as “indisputable evidence of war crimes”.
“It’s everywhere,” he said. “We drove miles and miles and saw death and destruction caused by Vladimir Putin in this evil invasion.”
Anton Herashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior ministry, said he arranged the visit in hopes that more US lawmakers would follow suit, get a sense of the war’s stakes and vote to provide Ukraine with additional weapons. .
Both Ms Spartz and Mr Daines said they supported bipartisan efforts in Congress to urge the Biden administration to deliver weapons to the Ukrainian military more quickly.
“I think we need to provide the lethal aid they need to win this war,” Daines said. “The humanitarian crisis will not end until the war is over. And the war will not end until the Ukrainians win.”